


The Third Body (A Ghost Story)

by superstringtheory



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky haunts Steve, David Lynch-ian weirdness, M/M, Steve and Bucky: a sad gay love story, ghost!bucky, post-CA:TWS AU, surrealist imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 12:37:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11275470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: After the events of CA: TWS, Steve doesn't find Bucky, but Bucky finds him. (Or does he?)





	The Third Body (A Ghost Story)

**I.**

 

The night is a thousand unopened eyes. 

 

He’s stillborn. Silent. Stalking. 

 

He’s waiting. The target lies ahead, still, and he’s waited decades for this. 

 

Crack of a small branch breaking, but neither of them are moving, and they’re not in the woods. In this dance macabre, they seem destined to circle each other forever, like orbits just out of range. A three body problem ( _ but who’s the third body? _ he thinks). 

 

Bucky isn’t ready for this meeting, this third encounter with--  _ Steve _ . Luckily, he’d gotten all that who-the-hell-is-Bucky bullshit straightened out: he was Bucky. ( _ Is? _ ) 

 

He follows Steve like it’s still his mission. He follows Steve, and waits for Steve to remember him. 

 

***

 

**II.**  

 

Steve looks in the mirror and his eyes are total black. He blinks, and clear blue returns. He shakes his head to clear it, but it’s like there’s someone standing right behind him in the room, breathing over his shoulder without drawing breath. 

 

A presence in the dust motes and shimmers, something that moves without moving. A thing that you can only describe by talking around it. 

 

_ He’s a ghost story _ , Natasha told him at the beginning of all this. Steve grew up in an era too practical for such things, but now he’s not so sure. Stories always start with a grain of truth, and he’s seen too much of the 21st century to feel like his 20th century brain can totally keep up with the pearl this grain has become. He shut his eyes in a world where a letter was months away and goodbye was probably forever, and opened them again to the dazzling instantaneousness of the internet and cell phones. He’s never really going to get over that. 

 

These days, there are a lot of things he’s not going to get over. 

 

***

 

**III.**

 

He’s evaporating. Eviscera. He’s the radioactive isotopes incorporating themselves into Steve’s DNA. 

 

There’s a handsome guy who looks ex-military and a girl with hair the color of blood. They were both there, back when Bucky didn’t even know who the hell he was, and now they’re still here, when all he knows is that he is ( _ was? _ ) Bucky. 

 

His vocal cords don’t seem to work anymore, but there are other ways of communicating. He learned that with HYDRA, learned to make a miniscule motion of the pinky mean a thousand words. 

 

So what if now what he has is to ruffle Steve’s hairs in the breeze, and make his toast burnt and cut him while he shaves? All he’s doing is telling Steve that he loves him, that he misses him, to  _ turn around motherfucker  _ because he’s  _ right here.  _

 

*** 

 

**IV.**

 

When Steve jerks off, it’s not his own hands on his dick. He has his hands behind his head and he doesn’t even realize it until after he comes, after the semen is dried on his belly.  _ So who was touching him? _

 

The room is dark, empty. Locked from the inside. New York is a hundred million wide-open eyes, but all Steve can see when he shuts his own is the afterimage of his orgasm. A figure with holes for eyes, its skin warm but only like a water balloon filled with fresh blood. 

 

“I dreamt about Bucky,” Steve says to Natasha the next morning over breakfast tea and toast, and Natasha’s mouth does a funny thing. 

 

Until he says it, Steve doesn’t even know that’s what he dreamt about. His hand fumbles on the table like it has a mind of his own. Then he has a lapful of tea and Nat is running around looking like he’s never seen her look and all Steve can say is “Cold. It’s so cold.” 

 

***

 

“Sure,” he says later, “sure I’ve been burnt before. Since the serum, I mean. I think it-- it must’ve just healed so fast, right? Guess my body got confused about cold and hot.” He gives a smile and it’s too big for the current size of his mouth. 

 

The S.H.I.E.L.D. doctor doesn’t say anything else, and lets Steve go with Natasha. They go back to the Tower, get into the elevator without looking at each other. Steve presses the button for his floor and Natasha’s silent, still, until her index finger darts out and presses the emergency stop. 

 

“Steve,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes, or maybe blood? Or maybe he’s just confusing the color of her hair. “Steve, I saw what happened and you weren’t even touching the table. Now listen to me.” She grabs his forearms hard and he thinks about what would happen if he hit her when she wasn’t expecting it; if she would die a Harry Houdini death and he’d never see her again. 

 

“ _ Listen _ ,” Natasha repeats, and Steve tries really hard to meet her gaze. “I hate that I’m about to say this because it makes me feel like a superstitious babuschka, but I feel like something is haunting you. Maybe.” She adds this last word tentatively, sews it onto the rest but it’s clear that it’s a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. 

 

Steve shrugs a shoulder up and down. “Maybe,” he echoes, and there’s that little disturbance of the air again, that feeling that if you watched surveillance tape footage of yourself that your eyes would catch the light in a weird way. 

 

“Aliens,” Steve says. “Norse gods. Cryogenic freezing. Who are we to say ghosts aren’t real, too?” 

 

Natasha looks like she wants to say something, but then she catches a reflection in the wall of the elevator and quickly turns towards the door. 

 

“I don’t know about you,” she says before hitting the emergency button again, “but I’d rather not be the object of a ghost’s affection.” 

 

***

 

**V.**

 

Time doesn’t work the way it used to. He used to spend years not even thinking, not even fucking  _ being _ , in a state of quantum superposition. Now all he can think about is Steve, and how could he have ever forgotten? 

He watches Steve in the morning, Steve with toast crumbs on his shirt, Steve sleepy-eyed and yawning. Steve shaving, nicking himself, Steve tasting blood on the back of his fingertip. Steve on the toilet. Steve eating a sandwich. He blinks and all he sees is Steve, doubled and redoubled, and then Steve is balls-deep in the blood-hair girl and then he is burning, or is it frozen? 

 

Bucky was never one for poetry, but he always did have a soft spot for that Bob Frost ditty, the one about the fire and the ice. 

 

Bucky? He chooses immolation. 

 

***

 

**VI.**

 

Steve asks Sam to go with him to the Smithsonian and look through archival photos. 

 

They go through the Howling Commandos files carefully, but Steve gets frustrated and shoves the whole pile on the floor. Sam has to go and make really, really nice to the archivist and drop a lot of names like “ _ Tony Stark, Smithsonian benefactor _ ” and sign a paper that says that he can no longer be on Smithsonian premises. 

 

Sam finds Steve four blocks away, inhaling a hot dog from a street cart and looking like he’s stuck between crying and screaming. 

 

For a second, when he’s approaching, Sam thinks that Steve looks up and there’s nothing where his face is supposed to be. And then he blinks, and the whole scene resets, and Steve’s still gazing down at the sidewalk. 

 

“He was there,” Steve says. “I was there, and the rest of the Howlies were there, and he was  _ FUCKING _ there.” His voice wavers on the last syllable, and Sam pulls him away from the curb.

 

“I know,” Sam says, and he doesn’t at all. “I know. But maybe the pictures with Bucky in them are in a different archive, or they’re on loan or--  _ something _ . We don’t know the whole story.” 

 

“I do,” Steve says stubbornly, and pulls away from Sam’s grip. The hotdog vendor is staring at them openly. 

 

“I saw those pictures before,” Steve continues, “and he was there.” His voice is almost a growl, and Sam feels on-edge, like if he were a dog his hackles would be raised. “He was right next to me, Sam. He was--” 

 

Steve suddenly whirls, and almost knocks Sam over in his haste. 

 

“He was-- he was--” Steve sinks to his knees on the sidewalk, and Sam’s already talking to Natasha on his iPhone. Minutes later, a dark blue BMW screeches up to the curb and Sam folds Steve into the backseat. 

 

“What happened?” Natasha asks, finding Sam’s eye in the rearview mirror. 

 

Steve answers before Sam can even open his mouth. “A ghost story. But I’m gonna find him.” His hand finds Sam’s, fumbling around on the backseat as if they’re first-time lovers. Steve’s hand is icy and clammy in Sam’s and Sam wants to jerk away, like the time his mom made him bend down to kiss Uncle Ernest’s embalmed cheek in the funeral home. 

 

“I’m gonna find him,” Steve repeats, and then he starts to cry.

 

***

 

**VII.**

 

Bucky doesn’t want to be found, because he’s not lost. He’s  _ right here, Steve, can’t you feel me in your mouth?  _

 

Steve chokes as Bucky watches, and he gives one last thrust as Steve gags in his sleep. This isn’t assault or anything so insidious. This is true love. 

 

Bucky knows it, and so what if he comes dry every time? So what if Steve’s never really awake, so what if they can’t talk in more than glances and the edges of feelings? Communicate in more than light flickers and spilled water glasses. He can be more than just the motions of a prowling housecat-- he has to be. 

 

Steve’s starting to feel him, Bucky can tell. Starting to know that he’s there, there in the mirror edges and knife points of things. Behind him closer than a shadow, wrapped up in him like a transplanted organ. 

 

Steve will see it soon- that Bucky’s found him again, that he’s ready for them to be reunited. It took a while for Bucky to be sure of anything, after the fight with Steve, the fall, and all of that-- but now he knows two things: one, he is ( _ was? _ ) Bucky, and two, Steve is  _ his _ . 

 

***

 

**VIII.**

 

Steve even sets up a camera to record as he’s sleeping, a la  _ Paranormal Activity _ , and that night he wakes up gasping and swallowing hard. 

 

When he goes back through the tape, it’s all visual static, a million moths evolving from black to white and back again. 

 

He heads into the bathroom to splash water on his face, flicking the light on without thinking about it. Steve’s chin is dripping and as he reaches for the towel, he catches a glimpse of something behind him in the mirror-- a shadow. Something. He straightens quickly, swiping the towel over his eyes. When he looks again, the shadow is gone, but the mirror spiderwebs a crack, starting from the middle of his reflection’s forehead. 

 

The crack dances a hellacious jig throughout the rest of the mirror until the whole thing shatters, spraying glass shards all over the bathroom. Steve ducks and covers his head with his arms, and comes away completely unscathed, all of the pieces surrounding him with a buffer of a few inches, as if there were some sort of force field surrounding him. 

 

“Steve?” Sam calls from the doorway to his room. “You okay? I heard glass breaking.” 

 

Steve is breathing hard, like he just finished a marathon sex session. “Mirror broke,” he manages eventually, as Sam appears in the entrance to the bathroom. 

 

“Shit,” he says, and Steve’s still crouching there on the floor, surrounded by mirror shards. 

 

“Seven years of bad luck?” Steve tries, but Sam doesn’t even pretend to smile. 

 

“There’s not enough salt in this apartment to help with this.” He frowns, and meets Steve’s eye levelly. “Hey. Truth time. Did you see something, Steve?” 

 

A shudder runs up Steve’s spine and he shivers hard, just once, like he’s developed a sudden fever. “I-- I don’t know what I saw,” he says, swallowing. “But I took video.” He stands up carefully and picks his way over the mirror shards and back over to his nightstand. 

 

“I took a look at it already,” Steve tells Sam, who follows him, eyeing him like he might a dog with a long history of bolting when off-leash. 

 

“Lemme see.” Sam puts his hand out for the camera, and Steve hands it over. 

 

Sam watches the tape in fast forward, then stops it. Rewinds, plays again. Stops. Rewinds. Watches silently, his brow furrowing. 

 

“Did you see this?” He asks Steve finally, pointing to an indiscriminate moth amongst the horde. 

 

“See what?” Steve asks, genuinely confused. 

 

Sam doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he turns the camera off and sighs. “I’m calling Natasha.” 

 

***

 

**IX.**

 

 

The handsome ex-soldier and the blood hair girl are talking about him. If only Bucky could explain, tell them-- he’s sure they’d agree. They all want the best for Steve. 

 

He’s watching. Waiting. Wary. 

 

Maybe he and Steve’s two new friends aren’t on the same side after all. They keep getting in the way and they never let Steve alone. 

 

Maybe all of this isn’t as good as the real thing, but Bucky can settle for second best, as long as he’s still here with Steve. Attached at the hip and scrotum, the whites of the eyes and the musculature. 

 

Steve uses the restroom, warily finds his reflection in the mirror. Bucky’s there just behind him, and he winks like he would’ve seventy years ago. 

 

The wink motion recurs, recurs again. A flip book stuck between the same two pages. When he unsticks, Steve’s gone. Bucky follows, but it’s getting harder to grasp the threads that run ( _ ran? _ ) between them. Like strings of spittle more than spider silk. 

 

When he finally manages to get back to Steve, he’s in conference with the two friends. Time has passed; what was light is now dark. The redhead’s lighting Mexican prayer candles, and the military guy is standing with his arms crossed over his chest. 

 

Bucky loses more time, and more again. Steve’s a flicker of candle flame, and then he’s not. 

 

Bucky is falling from a train, and then he’s not. 

 

***

 

**X.**

 

Steve’s an old man now, and Bucky is a bad penny in his pocket. 

 

Steve’s stopped ( _ still? _ ) looking, but the only place he’ll ever find Bucky is where he’s already found him. 

 

Steve catches his reflection while he’s walking past a building in Midtown. He pauses for a second, and then keeps going. He doesn’t look back.

 

 


End file.
